


Embers and Ashes

by TheFantabulousPandemonium



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, Demon Deals, Demons, Djinni & Genies, Dragons, Extended Metaphors, F/F, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fallen Angels, Gen, Ghouls, Gods, Homunculi, Immortality, M/M, Mentions of Being Burned at Stake, Mentions of Exorcism, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Murdering Entire Towns for the Lols, Necromancy, Nightmare Imagery, Repetition, Vampires, Were-Creatures, Witches, magical healing, unreality, woman in white
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-15 17:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9247250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFantabulousPandemonium/pseuds/TheFantabulousPandemonium
Summary: They say Lena Oxton came from Somewhere Else.But she was more witch than healer, they whispered, that she lured folk in with her beauty and they never came back quite right.A collection of musings.





	1. Tracer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSuspiciousOrange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSuspiciousOrange/gifts).



> thanks orange for listening to my late night ramblings about fantasywatch and encouraging this madness

They say Lena Oxton came from Somewhere Else.

That she was a changeling child caught between worlds and no amount of exorcisms would send the faeling back where she came from. Some tried, most failed. The ones that succeeded quickly learnt that setting her upon a cross to burn did nothing but singe. They didn’t get another chance to try again.

She kept the heart of an ice witch in her chest, a few murmured underneath their breath to curious children, the unavoidable cold seeping through every layer until her palms were coated in it. Until her breath came in clouds even as the midday sun beat down upon the realm. Until the very ground she walked on froze over with every step.

It was undeniable.

Whispers followed the cheery girl at every turn, dogging at her chilled heels and blackened fingertips, open-faced stares turning towards her at every inn, every tavern. She still smiled and went on with life. After all, man hated what it didn’t understand.

Or so she told herself.

There was solace in the moonlight, in the warm arms of someone who actually didn’t hate her. In circles and mounds and hills across the forests and plains and valleys. Dancing made her a little warmer, a little more human. A little less fae.

She couldn’t tell if that was a good thing.


	2. Widowmaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To say her name aloud brought her attention and brought your death.

Amélie Lacroix is not a name said anymore, hushed voices whispering anything but. To say her name aloud brought her attention and brought your death. They called her _Widowmaker_. _The Queen of Banshees_. _She of Many Faces_. _Assassin_.

Or, more simply, _Her_.

The Spider Queen was feared, who knew what she could do to a less than quick victim who unwittingly called her scrutiny. Rare were the people who remembered what she had been. Rarer still were those who remembered Gérard and his work.

She disappeared before her husband did, back when Overwatch was still a respectable guild, and never reappeared when he was found gutted and strung up in his own home. Never reappeared for his funeral, or for the house when the nobility declared it an unfit structure and had it torn down. A few say she did the job herself.

The rest wouldn’t put it past her.

Some whispered that she dabbled in Necromancy, that her skin was as dead and blue as the corpses she raised. That she kept Gérard’s head as a companion, the decaying skull both a trophy and a reminder of her finest kill. Others said she took to far darker arts too easily.

No one said how dark. All were afraid of the answer, of just how deep the corruption in her veins ran. The only advice most could give was that, once you saw the red gleam of her many, many eyes, there was no hope of escape.

 _Give in_.


	3. Soldier: 76

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was not a soul in the world that didn’t know the name Jack Morrison.

There was not a soul in the world that didn’t know the name Jack Morrison. He was the Shining Paladin, the face of Overwatch, and one of the most sought-after men in the realm. Until the collapse of both the dungeon and the guild.

And, just like that, he was lost to the world in tragedy. The world mourned.

And turned around to place the blame on Overwatch, once the information about Gabriel Reyes and Blackwatch was turned loose on the unsuspecting public. The guild couldn’t survive. It didn’t.

There were not many who remembered Jack outside of his armour and crowd-pleasing smile. Who had seen a sword cleave him nearly in two, only for the touch of magic to descend upon him and saw him rise stronger than before. Was there a point where healing someone damaged them, the witches of the day argued, using the Commander as an example for both sides.

Neither asked him.

Fewer still spoke of a soldier that could never die, who had more magic than blood running through his veins. There was a tipping point, the witches discovered much later. Before it became reversible up until another point. And he was far past either.

By then, barely anyone remembered who the soldier had been. Who he was, behind the mask and intimidating red glare. None spoke of it.


	4. Torbjørn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a smith in the next village over. He was always in the next village over.

There was a smith in the next village over. He was short, they said, with a beard almost as large as he and an arm made entirely out of gears. They swirled with magic, clicking and turning and catching the light with a deadly gleam.

Some said there was a demon trapped there, in the never-ending maze of gears, and with every struggle wound them tighter. Others whispered that he tricked the djinn who took the arm in the first place. That the djinn, bound to its word, spilled its magic over the moving parts and everything else they touched.

Others still said that he made the limb himself and had it enchanted by a powerful wizard. That he was a powerful wizard, hiding under the guise of a humble smith. Or the djinn itself.

He was the best smith in town, however, white and black and silver distinctions meant nothing. His creations had a life of their own no matter what they were. Knives shone in the dark, statues seemed to breathe, and automatons moved and whirred and made noise until they were destroyed.

They had never been destroyed, it was rumoured. Clockwork birds occupied the trees near his forge, small homunculi darted in and out of the tavern, and an automaton rained magic down on anyone who came to the smith with ill intentions.

There was a smith in the next village over. He was always in the next village over.


	5. Junkrat and Roadhog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You could not have one without the other.

You could not have one without the other. No one knew how they met, how they started traveling together, only that it was a terrifying sight to behold.

One was a ghoul, they whispered, sharp, unnatural teeth hidden behind an impassive leather mask. No one had seen his face to prove such a thing. No one wanted to.

You could not escape him, could not ever run fast enough to escape the fanged hook and shards of metal tearing through your flesh like paper. He didn’t speak, no, didn’t make a sound outside the rough laughter that shook the ground with its force.

The other was djinn-cursed, a child of the desert and of the starving dogs circling your camp at night, just out of reach of the flickering light and frightened words. He was more sand than human, half his limbs shifting like the dunes surrounding him and his eyes the bright, frantic yellow of the midday sun. His laugh was hyena-mad and echoed over the vast nothingness. Over shuttered windows and doors wedged shut.

There was silence when they passed through a town.

Not on their part, no, they always announced their presence with the dull roar of an oncoming dust storm. But the first to speak, the first to leave the safety of their house after they’d come and gone, disappeared. It had always been so.

Would always be so.


	6. Reaper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was no face behind the mask.

They called him a demon in human skin. Called him death-cursed, an abomination, a scar on the natural order of the world. Knew him by only a title, if even that.

No one knew what he was, be he wraith or revenant or lich, but he unnervingly was.

He slipped through the shadows like water, bone white mask stark against the smoke that dripped, black as sin, from his shoulders. Like the intangible murmurs of nightmares made a reality. They said the owls paid heed to their counterpart, that the woods were not safe at night and to always beware their screams. There were darker things than the wolves roaming then, gliding over the trees in a wild gust of wind.

Some called him a demon outright, a vampire, but neither holy symbols nor running water could deter him from hunting down those who spoke ill. Or harmed one of his creatures.

Vampire was perhaps the closest term folk could agree on. A hound in the dark who brought death with a glance and burning coals on your heels with a word. Fear personified.

Terror.

There were none who remembered him before the shadows claimed him, who remembered calculating eyes and quiet, controlled visions. There were none to connect the monster people feared with the once admired leader of Blackwatch, night-black threads turned to ash in the daylight of long ago.

There was no face behind the mask.


	7. Hanzo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whispers of an archer both blessed and cursed passed through villages like the winds that guided him.

Whispers of an archer both blessed and cursed passed through villages like the winds that guided him. Blessed by dragons or the gods, no one knew or cared to know, only that his steps were silent and his arrows true. More cursed, some said, with wild magic lurking under his skin ready to snap at the slightest provocation.

He was there and gone in brief moments, a flash of blue their only warning. Towns were left razed to the ground in his wake. There were no survivors, usually. Nothing left but the breeze and a murmur of magic thrumming deep through the earth. Rarely did he leave victims alive; scared, lonely things with bright eyes and shaking bodies, limbs torn from them like by ravenous wolves.

Rumours called him the former son of a clan from the east, hands dipped in massacres and unable to outrun his own past no matter how he tried. His name was lost from them, none dared ask when he appeared and none remembered when he left.

Others claimed he was the disgraced dragon itself, forced to walk the realm and always searching for something he couldn’t find. Someone he couldn’t find. No one knew what, exactly, made him wander so.

No one asked.

No one listened to rumours anymore, listened to the bloodshed on their lips or the suspicion in their eyes. But superstition and reputation preceded him, voices hushed at every tavern to hear him speak, to ask what only one person could hear.

And he was greeted with silence.


	8. Sombra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a witch with magic in her fingertips, with woven threads that could bring you to your knees.

There was a witch with magic in her fingertips, with woven threads that could bring you to your knees. Or more.

Or worse.

Her touch was deadly, an enthralling mixture of poison and pleasure that allowed her to draw out anything she chose or could ever want to know. Bright eyes saw through every false smile and stuttered word, her voice a compelling temptation into her grasp. Few could resist.

Some said she made a deal with a devil for her hands, the unnatural glow across her palms and their backs a testament to the power. That she knew more than any mortal should, drunk on power and knowledge. Others that she was a demon, not a witch, and Below didn’t want her. Which was why she stayed in this realm, terrorizing mortals and gliding through towns like a ghost. Either could be the truth, information about her scarce outside of warnings.

Sombra, they called her.

The eavesdropping shadow in the corner and the grinning demon at the crossroads ready to exchange anything you could possibly desire for your very soul. Those who took the deal returned blank-eyed and listless, mumbling prayers under their breath and looking over their shoulders like every dark corner might hold the witch they sold their lives to. She could be anywhere.

She usually was.


	9. Ana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And she will eat you up, screams and all.

Beware the Shrikemother in her glowing mask, they told the children, for when she came to town naughty boys and girls disappeared from their beds in the dead of night. Her cloak was made of the stars, red hot and tattered at the edges, and her only eye the sliver of moon after darkness consumed the world. You wouldn’t even know she was there, her steps the tap of rain against your windows and the glint of her sword a figment of your dreams.

And she will eat you up, screams and all.

The Shrike used to be a gentle soul, they said. Before the wastes claimed her, before the wars and the fighting and the blood that dripped from her hems like water, leaving puddles beneath each footprint. She used to be Overwatch, some remembered. Used to heal with a thought and a snap of magic, her touch a blessing and boon to those upon the battlefield. 

Used to be human.

Now, she hunted in the night for those who did not behave politely, who did not listen to their mothers. For those who thought themselves above the laws and did not respect their elders. She was a walking nightmare, not quite living yet unable to die until her task was complete, and she was coming for you.

Now, her touch would put you to sleep, the last thing you saw her mask bright as day. The last sound her laughter ringing like distant church bells, calling for your death. 

And you would never wake up.


	10. Zarya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don’t heed the beckoning roars that echoed through the villages.

In the far north of the realm, the sun was swallowed whole by the sea for half a year. Sometimes longer.

Here, there was strange magics, wild and untamed like the wizards that call the region home. Like the creatures lurking around the edges of small, isolated villages encrusted in snow, unseen anywhere else and welcomed like old friends.

Here, there was a woman whispers followed, with her too-clear eyes and unnatural hair. They said the moon, ever bright and watching, controlled her. That the snow gave her little pause, that she could fell an ancient tree wider than she was tall in an hour. Folk didn’t ask more questions than they needed to, nor did they ask more of Aleksandra than she was willing to give them in odd jobs.

Outside of the North, she was a stranger in furs black as the night that surrounded her, giving no heed to unkind words and glances. In the land where the sun rose each day, her eyes were as bright as the lunar goddess she worshiped and the deep rumble of a bear sweeping underneath her speech. Few knew what she was, but far many more suspected.

But beware, they murmured as she left once more toward the next town, don’t go out when the moon was full. Don’t heed the beckoning roars that echoed through the villages.

_Don’t go out_.


	11. Mei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do not take her hand, lest you wished your death to be slow and cold.

Tales told of a woman more snow than human, dark hair and eyes a strange contrast to her snowflake skin. Do not take her hand, lest you wished your death to be slow and cold.

Slow and cold and painful.

She lingered on the edges of villages, calling out for anyone who would listen. They said none have taken her hand and lived, had listened to her honeyed words caress their ears until there was nothing left in their head and come back the same. Her words were smooth as silk, warm as a summer day. Daylight would shine right through her translucent face, if it ever touched her. The pins in her hair were icicles given elegant form, her dress a white, tattered mockery of the traditional.

Each town had their own survivor, though they were hard to come by.

The man was grey and old, face worn with the ice of years, and he told of a woman so beautiful he’d forgotten his wife and daughters the moment he saw her. That he’d taken her delicate hand in his own and went to her home, where it looked like summer had come in the middle of a too-harsh winter. He’d eaten her food, drank her wine, and fell asleep in her bed. And woke half-buried in a snowdrift scant inches from the edge of a cliff. He’d barely made it back in one piece, evident from the missing fingers and haunted look in his eyes.

Don’t take her hand, he warned any traveler to cross his path.

_Don’t take her hand._


	12. Mercy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But she was more witch than healer, they whispered, that she lured folk in with her beauty and they never came back quite right.

There was a healer with hair like the sun. Her eyes were a cloudless blue, the colour of the sky on a bright spring morning. Her voice was soft and steady, her wand long and light.

And imposing.

There was nothing she couldn’t fix, no ailment too incurable for her delicate touch. They called her Mercy. None knew her actual name, and she took to the title with a smile.

But she was more witch than healer, they whispered, that she lured folk in with her beauty and they never came back quite right. That her craft was one step from necromancy, dainty fingers dripping with the blackened ashes of the patients that didn’t survive her tender care.

She glided through towns, raising the sick from their beds in less than a day and leaving in the same. Some called her a cleric blessed by the gods, an angel, spreading miracles and keeping their faith stronger than ever. Most didn’t deny it, the strange etherealness surrounding her off-putting yet surreal and enchanting, drawing them into a downward spiral. Some said she was trying to redeem herself in the eyes of the gods, that she’d committed some grave sin and fallen from grace. That she was trying to once again embody her namesake.

That, perhaps, was the closest to the truth they could grasp.


End file.
